What it's Like to Burn
by iackrabbit
Summary: Eddard often felt cold when he saw his eldest daughter, and he feared she'd die young. She had more than a touch of wolf's blood running through her, and she was moody and estranged at the best of times. Jaime Lannister didn't agree, she burned as bright as her red hair, like her uncle had all those years ago. When he looked at Eledei Stark he felt like he was fighting. (Jaime/OC).
1. THE WARD AND THE DAUGHTER

**THE DAUGHTER AND THE WARD**

It was a cold day, not unlike any other day, and the ice spidered through the earth in spindling, thin roots, catching the white light of the sun and glistening against the packed soil like silver. She thought they looked like cobwebs on a rainy day, and the chill didn't seem to bother her as she waited.

The world seemed quiet outside Winterfell's tall walls, where the bustle of ladies and soldiers and the small folk began to hasten as the King's party drew near, as if all the noise and the crowds only existed in the walls to begin with. The North was queer that way, she knew, with all its isolation and the harrowing cold, and she wondered what it would be like somewhere else.

From the Mill she could hear the rush from the Acorn Water, of a stream running against the stony river bed and the broken dam the farm hand's children had constructed. She'd had a good mind to wade through the little riverside with her direwolf, but she wasn't in the mood to upset Mother today, and skirts could carry an unbearable weight when soaked through. Instead she had seated herself on a plough, one knee pulled to her chest and the other hanging off the side with her wolf threading itself between the wood and her leg.

She was alone with her thoughts, the way she liked it, with only her wolf at her side and a wineskin she had thought to share.

It wasn't snowing, but the snow was never far, and her fur cloak was hooded and peaked far too wide for her head, obscuring her view until she let it fall uselessly and swathe her shoulders. Her brother's liked to pull on her hood when they saw her, and they had seen her less and less as the days went by, Father was concerned.

Soon enough she saw a dark head of hair appear from the stables, bobbing with a joyful skip in step as the figure went about lacing up his britches. They were a silvery-grey lambswool, and such finery could only belong to one person, along with the white leather belt hanging low at his waist.

"I knew I'd find you here," Eledei called, taking delight in the way he jumped. It wasn't often she bothered to surprise people. "Tell me, how is the miller's wife?"

Theon Greyjoy scowled, but his eyes were smiling at her. He could never be mad after getting his cock wet, he was wane to be mad at her in the first place. "Keep your voice down, her Husband isn't far."

He eyed her chest, it's bodice a silver grey, almost white in its glow, and embroidered with darker roses. He supposed her lady Mother had had it made specially for today, and he wouldn't deny she looked pretty in it.

Eledei Stark was too lean to be well endowed, but he liked her perky tits well enough to stare, and the flare of her hips against her small waist- he bet the flesh of her hips was soft to the touch and easy to hold, that she'd shiver if his fingers ghosted along the stretched skin over her ribs and quake around him. He wondered if her Mother knew about those thoughts in his head, the ones that came up more often now, and if she did know would she still had put in a request for such a gown?

Theon let himself, if only for a moment, imagine that those small dark roses were Kraken's instead.

"Why is it that you're never anywhere to be found when I look but you can find me so easily?" He wondered, coming to lean against the a thick rafter of the barn, his words as suggestive as his looks as he gave his breeches one last tug and went about fastening his belt.

She grinned at the horrible flirt of a ward, "I brought a wineskin, I know you must have worked up a thirst."

Theon let out a laugh, settling into his cocky grin with his tall lean frame and wiry muscle looming over her. "Beauty _and_ brains, I've got my work cut out with you, Edei."

The wineskin was shared between them, passing from hands languidly as the wine warmed their skin and their laughter. The direwolf strayed a bit, as vicious in nature as it was quiet.

"Have you thought of a name yet?" Theon said, toying with her red hair that she wore in a braid for once. He thought he liked it better undone.

Sansa, only that morning, had begged her sister to give her a braid, too. She had said no, ignoring her Mother's disapproving looks, and took her leave without dismissal. Perhaps her fanciful sister was used to her surliness, but that didn't mean it hurt any less. And maybe Elenei knew that, though she was dubious to care.

"No," she admitted, taking the last drink from the wineskin, lips stained red.

The wolf looked a lot like blood money to her, it's black coat shining with a reddish bronze hue. It was thirsty for blood, too. She considered her wolf for a moment, but she couldn't find a word for it, couldn't find a name deserving of her only companion in the world. Names, fickle things they were, she thought, blown with the wind- and Robb had called his Grey Wind.

"I have a sister called Yara," Theon told her all at once, maybe for no reason.

"Sisters are a done deal, they squabble too much. Arya might have had the right idea, naming hers after some long dead person, but I reckon Rickon said it best. Shaggydog is a fine name."

"If that's what you believe. I've never seen an animal that colour, or one so keen on killing everything in sight."

"I like her, she's endearing. Even so with blood on her teeth."

"She's missing a tooth or two, isn't she?" He gave her braid a sharp tug, wheedling forward so as to get a better look at the beast. "Toothless, she is."

He was right. Cheek to cheek with her, they watched the direwolf flitter a bird, it's chirps dying as its neck went at an odd angle, feathers coming loose. It was hard to tell, but she had lost a premolar on the top left, only visible when her snout tugged into what looked like a sharp grin and her teeth glimpsed.

It was her wolf that was the only one able to catch a bird, she was bigger than even Ghost, Jon's wolf, and growing still.

"Maybe that's what you should call her. Toothless," he snickered, jaw jumping against her own.

Shrugging, she hid the empty wineskin within the folds of her skirts, pushing off the plough. Standing, she was nearly as tall as Theon, if only a bit shorter for being the fairer sex. There didn't seem to be much fair about her sex at all, she would be prone to argue, but she was happy to keep quiet about it if it meant she didn't have to speak that much.

Someday, the two of them thought they might marry, though her Lord Father had never said as much. In fact, he hadn't said much of anything to her in the passing years, not after _the incident._ But to them, the ward and the daughter, it made more than sense.

The two of them watched the unnamed wolf push the bird's corpse along playfully, walking away from the mill and following the river for a while. It might have looked odd, two youths and a direwolf pup, but the North was a strange place, it was all they knew.

"Why did you come find me in the first place, Edei?"

Theon ducked under a tall branch, hair ruffled by twigs and leaves of the forest, as surefooted as only a hunter could be. He didn't trip, not even when the wolf ran out from beneath his feet or took to winding between their legs, dead bird still at its mouth only to be dropped and kicked along the floor by overgrown paws.

It wasn't often the eldest Stark sought out company, she liked to be left alone and disappeared more often than not, with only that wolf of hers in tow. He considered her for a while, eyeing her different from before, smiling a clever smile as if he knew all her secrets.

Eledei often ran away. It made her Mother cry until the tears finally dried up and her Father worry until resignation settled over him- They never knew where to find her or why she had ran in the first place. She was only young, then, quiet at the best of times, and she could never find the words to explain why she ran. Older, now, and prettier still, she didn't say much.

"I was bored," she told him, "and it's sad to drink alone."

* * *

 _ **(AN: I get bored of nice Stark OC's. I think the Stark's can be as moody and sullen as Stannis sometimes, so I figured it would be fun to give Eledei a really unappealing outlook and horrible temper.)**_


	2. THE CRYPTS

**THE CRYPTS**

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." Catcher in the Rye, J.D Salinger

Theon and the others had left, to be sheared and primed like sheep in season. She thought about Jon and his pretty hair, Robb with Mother's curls, and the stubble that had ghosted Theon's cheeks. Her own hair, braided, swayed against her back in tandem with her steps.

She had been walking along a high wall when Robb had smiled at her, clasping Theon on the back like they were brothers. Perhaps it might have fell, his smile, when she turned away, but she wouldn't have known. She had dropped from the wall, where her wolf was waiting eagerly, and disappeared as quick as she liked. Jon would console him, like he always did when Eledei got into one of those moods, and perhaps he'd try to talk to her, too, much later when her Mother wasn't watching.

She wished he wouldn't.

The snow outside the walls thawed out in some places, the earth was wet and thick with the cold, it felt like ice through her fingertips and clung to her boots.

"Lady Eledei," Cayn, her Father's guard, called out.

When Winterfell faced ones back and they look further out North there was nothing but the expanse of hills and snow that trimmed into a landscape of trees and woodland further out. Thin trees with no leaves and branches as bare as the whores waiting in Inn's and brothels stuck up in needle points, impervious to the bite of the wind with their wooden curves and skeletal limbs. She spent a lot of her time with her back to those walls she had grown up with, but today she found herself turning South, to where the King's road was. With his dark hair and the glint of metal it was hard not to catch a glimpse of the intruder.

"Go away," she ordered.

Kicking up snow, she watched further out to the King's men dotted along the countryside crawl along like ants. Caravans, horses and foot soldiers meandered, barely moving if the light hit just right so that the hills and people went to grey water silhouettes, and she screwed up her face and watched how the image changed as her eyes fluttered lazily. Silent as the dead, her wolf scared a flock of birds away, black in feather with misshapen beaks, their inkly colour bleeding into the figures of men, and if she blinked she could pretend that those birds took the people along with them. It was a brilliant thing, she wished someone else could have seen it, too. If only someone saw what she did then they might just understand, because she certainly wouldn't tell them about those birds that flew away with the men.

Theon had once told her he was scared of the Weirwood tree. Truth had its own odd way about it, and when she went to the Godswood she'd think of Theon, watching the bleeding faces of the Old Gods gazing back at her.

Her moment of peace was broken by heavy foot fall and a tall figure flocking to her side, ruining the light and changing the image once more. It was Cayn, she knew that without sparing a glance, and he liked to insist that they were friends. She didn't have any friends, she didn't want any, either.

"You really don't like me, m'lady?"

Those birds were gone, then, just vague outlines in the distance. But the men remained, in the distance and dragging up snow. Only a black feather was left, scarcely a foot away, the only proof that they'd been there in the first place; a single stain against white. It bothered her, for some reason, but she didn't have the heart to pick it up.

Let it mar the snow, least it made it real.

She looked at him, grey eyes as sharp as steel and his own as bright as a summer's day, and he smiled.

It was a handsome smile worn on a handsome face, but it did nothing for her. She didn't so much as blink in the presence of beautiful things and people, it failed to hold her attention the same way embroidery did for her sister, Arya, or fighting did for Sansa. But there was no denying the fairness of him, with his dark hair and high cheekbones, decked in armour that might have been much grander for some other house. Stark's went unbothered by grandeur as a general rule, it seemed.

A dart of red thwarted the heavy armoured steps, a wolf growled, and she would have been more pleased if his stupid smile had faded, but by now he was used to the direwolf pup's threat. She might have been impressed if it weren't for his insistence on bothering her, or the idea that he was simply too stupid to know when to fear or let something be. The steps persisted again, unbothered.

Nevertheless the nameless beast nashed her narly choppers viciously, a deep rooted snarl rumbling in the air.

"Has she got a name yet?" He wondered, smile steadily in place.

People liked names, she supposed, they liked to know what to call something when they ruined it, because she knew that people ruined everything.

Unperturbed, he followed her, still. His steps weren't clumsy but heavy with the weight of muscle and steel, she returned his grace with a moody stare and barely there steps herself. Company was like the plague, first Theon and now Cayn, and she had brought it upon herself in the first place for searching out the Greyjoy ward. Frustratingly, she knew this to be true, such knowledge stemming from a purposeful life of isolation and loneliness, the only things she held remotely dear.

"Funny, we seem to be walking away from home, Winterfell is back that way."

 _No, ser,_ the redhead thought, words on the tip of her tongue but unsated. _Winterfell is no more my home than stone walls and a cell, I belong nowhere._

Eledei thought he must love the sound of his own voice. He must have known by then that his words would garner no reply, that he was as good as speaking to the many ghosts of Winterfell.

"I've been given orders to tell you you're needed, and to tie that wolf of yours up if you'll have it."

She was well acquainted with the ghosts within those walls. Ghosts, that's what having a home did to people. Their faces loomed long and dark in the crypts, statues and blades and the lick of fire reflecting off the walls and making shadows dance, giving the stone a lap of life that had given her nightmares as a child.

"Your Lord Father, m'lady. He stressed the utmost haste of the task, too, might I add."

When she was younger she had found some semblance of solace in the crypts. It was where she took to hiding for days on end, with bread from the kitchens stuffed in her pockets and sticky wine too sweet to get drunk on. Walking along the halls, looking at faces, and she knew that one day her Father's would be there, too. As a child she imagined it was his face on the statues, in some empty space crying out to be filled, his face in the dark where the living weren't welcome anymore. Robb's too, and his children, and his children's children, until there was no space left and all their stony faces crumbled and filled the room.

Many of her first memories were of those days that she had taken it upon herself to run away, seemingly without rhyme nor reason, and her Mother would cry and ask her what was wrong and she'd cry herself because she scarcely knew. It had been a long time since Eledei had cried, now, longer still since she remembered those days.

Nothing more than a child, she had crept down the steep steps of the crypts with a kindled flame burning bright the same colour as her hair. The memory was hazy and worn with age, the same way the eldest faces in the crypts lost their sharpness and definition with time, but she remembered the flames well, because her limbs were thick and cold all over and the fire thawed her skin and the ice from her veins. Left a liquid courage running through her, when the cold melted away, one that drowned her fear and made her breath warm and smoke when it touched the air. That had been a time where she had been too young to be afraid of fire, at an age where one either feared nothing or everything, and it had been that day she had learned the meaning of fear.

All alone, in the dark, with naught but a dwindling fire and the dead to keep her comfort. And the fear took her, all at once and as consuming as the dark.

As if the memory were fresh, burning anew with a vigor and brightness she hadn't thought possible to recall, she saw herself standing tiptoed, with the fire so close to her face it made her eyes sting and itch from the smoke. Eledei could feel the heat of the flames kiss her skin as if she had been doing it all over again, could smell the smoke and the damp of the crypts, and she saw Brandon Stark's face looking down at her-

"Eledei!" Cayn interposed abruptly, startling her from her thoughts.

He wasn't smiling anymore, and for a moment she could have sworn it was Brandon's stone cold eyes looking at her, devoid of all warmth and swathed in the dark. They stood a scant foot or two apart, in the cold and the daylight, no fire or ghosts around.

"Gods be good, have you gone half deaf?" he snapped, and even with a voice thickened with anger he was still fond of asking questions. "The King'll get there before we do, what with the way you're going on! Now, listen and listen good; we're going back to Winterfell, I'm chaining your unnamed wolf to its post, and you'll meet the King graciously."

She blinked, "Alright."

Cayn watched her turn on her heel, heading back the way they came with her little wolf nipping at her heels. Gormlessly, he stood there watching her walk away, mouth dropping and forming a less than stellar 'o' in his shock. If she noticed the guard was in no right state to hurry, she didn't mention it, in fact, it seemed as if she hadn't so much as noticed he was yet to follow in her footsteps.

"Bleeding hell, 'alright'? You're not even going to kick up a fuss? 'Alright'!" He echoed disbelievingly, just standing there in snow up to his ankles and watching her go.

Realising that she wasn't stopping, he hurried after her, praying to the Old Gods and the New alike for the strength to keep her this compliant. He hadn't seen her so agreeable since… well, forever, he supposed.

* * *

Eledei leaned against a wagon, watching the smallfolk and her family begin to accumulate at the gates of Winterfell where the King's carriages and men began to approach. The whole ordeal bored her, in all honesty, and she wished her wolf hadn't been chained.

The creature had looked up at her with its scarily clever eyes, yellow eyes that came across strangely human at times, though she had yet to come across a person with yellow eyes and doubted she ever would. Lulling its head, the beast had willingly trotted after the guard at the nod of its master's head, sparing Eledei one last glance before following Cayn for good.

In a mood, with no pet by her side, she went back to staring at the encroaching men despite Cayn's words. _Let Father wait,_ she thought in her foul temper, _if he wants to chain up my wolf then he should know I'm hard pressed to attend._

She took some semblance of consolation in watching the royal wheelhouse titter on edge and struggle through the mud in the not so far distance, tiltering and groaning on it's took large wheels not suited for the climate. Cruel maybe, it was a perverse kind of joy that took hold of her, to watch tired men eye the caravan with barely concealed disdain and evident misery, and she'd wager that it had played its part in dragging out the trip at a torturous pace.

 _Good,_ she thought, _let them suffer. They never should have come to this place, they should have stayed South with their sun and their titles._

Wood jumped as she felt a weight climbing across the binders of the wagon and settle against the forefront, catching a glimpse of a metal helmet and a fur lining cloak. Knowingly, she crossed her arms across her bodice fitted chest, slumping further against the steady enough structure.

"Arya, I know you're there," she said, cocking an eyebrow up at her unruly little sister. "You can't sneak up on me of all people, you should know better than that."

Her sister's face peeked over the railing, looking down at her with a cheeky smile. As if Eledei's acidic glower did nothing to deter her at all, despite the intensity and heat behind it, her sister waved.

"You'll give poor Septa Mordane an early grave, nevermind Mother," she half smiled, then. "Though, I can't say it's not something I'd pay to see."

"You're late, too," Arya remarked, tone writhe with impudence.

Perhaps she took after her big sister, after all.

Eledei went back to staring at the gates and the oncoming stream of people, stuck in her thoughts. Most consuming of all was of her beloved pet, she didn't think of the crypts or fire or of Brandon, whom was dead before she was born, but she watched the people from the faraway and thought no good ever came of a Northerner riding South, and that perhaps the same was to be said for the reverse.

Somehow, she lent her thoughts to Cayn and the wolf. He'd been acting as a messenger, as he was so prone to do, but she tried not to think about her pet in chains for all the good it did her in her blackened mood.

It had become a common thing for her Father to speak to her through messengers, and the time they spent together had withered down to near nothingness over time, dwindling as the days went past and time took its queer hold on things. She knew it saddened him, the same way the distance she put between herself and everyone else had a habit of hurting and angering Robb, or the knowing looks her half brother Jon would send her- like he _understood,_ an impossible feat that did nothing to pacify her surly nature.

Isolation, the mind forged prison she had taken to in her early years and so obviously favoured, had taken its toll on both her and her family.

The King's men began to ride in, hoisting banners high of Lannister lions wreathed in gold and luxurious reds, the tails catching the Northern winds and fluttering like flames. Not stags, but lions, and she half expected to see Tywin Lannister decanted in a crown atop some horse, not a Baratheon with a golden Queen.

"Look, Eddie, the Hound!" Arya exclaimed, pushing forward against the cart and over the rails to get closer, still.

Eledei took hold of her sister's outreached arm, pulling her so that she leant down further and hooking her other arm around Arya's slight and squirming midsection. With ease she hoisted her little sister down from the platform in an elegant swing of skirts and heavy furs. Unlike her sister's, Arya was only a tiny thing, a spitfire consisting of all bones and Stark height, dwarfed by her siblings that took after the Tully's. She hadn't grown at all over the last few months, and Bran was well on his way to overtaking her. Though she'd be quick to point out that she was still better than him in archery and horse riding.

Her eldest sister, tall and lithe, towered over her, slightly bent forward so as if to shield her.

"It's not fair," Arya huffed, "I'm older than Bran, I should be taller by now!"

Resting a hand on the squirming girl's shoulder to keep her in place, Eledei walked briskly towards the family line.

She was still rather sour, but seeing as Arya was getting into as much trouble as her she thought hard about what to say. It was both of interest and mild annoyance to watch her youngest siblings actively seek out praise, and she couldn't fathom why they would happily eat up her words with a swell of pride and ruddy cheeks. She herself had been a lonely child, always kept a fair distance from everyone else, neither here nor there and standing apart from her family, always a throw away.

"I like your helmet, you little thief," she praised, watching knowingly as a mollified smile pulled sheepishly at her rounded cheeks. "Did you steal a blade, too? Will you poke me full of holes, or are you saving that for Sansa?"

Perhaps Cayn's fondness for questions had been catching, but she kept it mostly confined at a safe rhetoric, for fear of taking too much of an interest- even in her own blood.

Arya laughed, "I'll tell Mother you're giving me ideas!"

"Go on, then. I'll tell Jon you're jealous of his pretty hair."

"Am not!"

Eledei shrugged, shoving her sister a bit as her Father's nearly amused face came into view along with their Mother's stern frown.

* * *

"Where's Arya?" Catelyn frowned, "Sansa, where's your sister?"

Eddard Stark turned, knowing full well that he wouldn't find what he was looking for. It seemed as if his eldest and youngest daughter had much in common.

As if reading his thoughts, his Lady Wife's frown deepened to a steep ridge between her thinned lips. "Eledei should be here by now, to set an example for the youngest."

The oncoming party sounded in a clash of hooves and unsteady caravans.

All of a sudden, Ned spotted a head of red hair shoving her little sister ahead brashly.

Eledei bent at the waist, whispering something into Arya's ear, the young girl's face brightening with delight before she darted towards the family in a sudden run. Straightening, some, his eldest daughter met his gaze unabashed, grey eyes hard as stone.

Arya had a soldier's helm that only just quite fitted her small head, it bobbed as she approached and his arm darted out as she went to go by- "Hey, hey," he chided softly, holding her by her arms. "What are you doing with that on?"

She looked up at her Father with wide, rounded eyes, her lips parting softly with the beginnings of an explanation she wouldn't fulfill. Looking at her, he tried in vain not to think of Lyanna.

Taking the helm, he considered the viser and steel, his own face staring back at him. "Go on," he advised, handing it back to Rodrick and ignoring her hefty groan.

The eldest of the siblings took her time, looking bored and unapproachable, and most people had the good grace to look away from her fiery hair and steel eyes. She was the Stranger of Winterfell, the lone wolf more oft than not choosing to be alone and wandering off to Gods knows where. These people that surrounded them in the courtyard had known her since she was born, and somehow they knew her just as little in the seventeen years she had walked these grounds as they would have if she was nothing more than a stranger.

Beside him, standing tall and just a boy, still, Robb seemed to deflate a little at the sight of his sister, of whom he had shared a womb with and no more.

It would have taken a blind man not to notice the way in which Eledei Stark removed herself from familial bonds, how she distanced herself even from her twin brother who loved her kindly in return.

Eddard Stark watched his daughter, all of this painstakingly in mind, and it struck him suddenly that it was meant for Brandon.

She had Brandon's height. His height and eyes and the wolfblood in her veins that ran hot, just like his brother. And just like his brother, Ned thought she might die young.

His children, a plentiful lot, had grown strong and healthy, and they had yet to grow some more in the following years. And like Father's so often were, he was proud of each and every one of them, all for varying reasons and with fond memories to look back on, but it was Eledei that had caused him worry from the minute she was born.

Quiet as she was as a child, she had been born lost. That he acknowledged with the heaviest of hearts, for it was one of the bitter truths he had been forced to come to terms with. The little girl he called his own didn't connect, not like the others did as they so effortlessly took to their Mother and him, and as she grew it only became all the more apparent that she simply had no desire to.

Some part of him was convinced it was the will of the Gods that made it so, their way of punishing him. It had always been Brandon that was supposed to rule, his Lady Wife to be that Ned had taken as his own- but Brandon had died young, and Ned was bound by duty. This was something that came to mind increasingly every time he looked at Eledei, who had her Tully hair and Stark eyes, from the very first time she had disappeared to now.

She reminded him too much of Brandon, too much of his dead brother with the way her eyes smouldered and how her wolfblood ran hot. He feared that looking at her was like looking back on the past, his eldest who had been named for him and which he held in the highest of honors.

Wordlessly, Eledei took her brother Rickon straight from her Mother's arms and into her own.

* * *

Rickon smiled adoringly at her as she tucked him safely in her arms with the absent hum of a greeting.

Father, she noticed, watched her sadly as she whisked her brother away, but he didn't say a word, and neither did Mother, though it might of have had something to do with the King's impending presence only a stone's throw away.

With his wild curls and blue eyes, her brother smiled in earnest, a chubby fist already rooted in the folds of her braid but careful not to tug. It occurred to her, then, like it so often did, that Rickon might be the only person she loved more than herself.

The men from the South were starting to file in on horses with gold armour, blowing their horns and hoisting flags high mast for all the people of Winterfell to see.

She interjected herself and her brother seamlessly into the lineup between Arya and Bran, nodding politely but shortly at Robb and Jon and ignoring Sansa after all the sulking she had done that morning. Sisters, she knew, could be more trouble than they were worth- but, then again, she supposed the same was true for her.

Leaning down a little bit, if only to infuriate her Mother some more, she slipped her arm around Bran so at to hug him to her side. And while Rickon was of her own favour, Bran was their Mother's.

"Look at you, you've grown some," Eledie acknowledged shortly, and the boy didn't mind her abrasive nature or lacklustre voice.

She raised a brow as his little chest swelled with pride and he shot her a sweet smile that only a child could muster. It wasn't strange for her siblings to express their delight at her sparse positive comments or the rare compliment, but it always amused her when they did so.

"A compliment?" Theon whispered to her, appearing behind her at a moments notice for no apparent reason, "the shrew is giving compliments, now?"

"Not to Greyjoy's," she amended shortly, and why Theon found her so amusing she'd never know.

The Crown Prince rode between two of the Kingsguard men, his lavish black cloak and red leathers contrasting with the white cloaks that sheathed him in a charming manner. Adorning a hound's helm and acting as the boy's shield was The Hound, looking half a giant and towering over the child Prince in an almost comical fashion.

The little wolf of a boy in her arms squirmed, and so she lowered him to the ground and held him in front of her carefully. Childishly he took the arm she curled loosely across his small chest and placed his hand on her own, content to be swathed in her arms and skirts as he watched the knight's and ponies with the apt attention of a little boy.

Just then, the horrid wheelhouse creaked into the gateway and down an unsteady path, and Eledei smiled at the way the men grimaced at it. For a moment it rocked, shifting a bit too much on the left and weighing down heavily, but to her disappointment it didn't tip over. She thought that might have cheered her up better than all the wine and wolves in the world.

With more white cloaks came King Robert Baratheon I, his black hair kept long with grey creeping in and his generous frame long gone to fat.

 _This,_ she thought wickedly, _was the face of a Rebellion that sent the Seven Kingdom's to war._ Gone was the handsome young man with the dark hair and blue eyes the bards had sung of, whose arms could carry and lift above his head an almighty war hammer that had killed Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and crushed his ruby encrusted armour with one swing. This was the man who had loved her Aunt Lyanna, who had taken the throne from the Mad King whom had her Grandfather and Uncle killed.

Choked at a post and burned to a crisp in his own armour if she remembered correctly.

 _The horse beneath him has bared the brunt of his reign more than anyone,_ she thought plainly, staring blankly at a man entirely made up of stories, and an excess of wine and cake she'd wager.

Smoothly, she guided Rickon to the ground with her, to bow deeply and humbly for a glut of a King that was more likely to choke on a chicken bone that be slain in war. For that was the way of these Southerners who had invaded her home, who knew nothing of winter or honor.

When her Father rose the people followed, all looking to their liege Lord, the respective Warden of the North, who stood before the King of the Seven Kingdoms; of whom he had played a part in putting on the throne in the first place.

"Your Grace," Father greeted.

"You've got fat," the King replied.

The two of them, acting like the boy's they once were, laughed together as they exchanged fierce hugs. It was almost easy to imagine the children they once were, and harder still to comprehend the men they had become.

Eledei, apathetic, watched the Queen leave her wheelhouse and look as if it was the last thing on earth that she wanted to do.

"Where's the imp?" Arya said.

"Will you shut up?" Sansa demanded.

It was easy to understand why people said Cersei Lannister was the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, but it was a cold kind of beauty- Eledei thought that her Aunt's looks ran hot rather than cold, not the ornate kind the Queen wore like a mask as she stood beside her children. They all had gold hair and green eyes, looking more lion than stag.

"Who have we here?" The King's voice reeled closer. "You must be Robb."

 _Yes, Your Grace,_ she answered in her head, staring ahead, _named for a fat King thrice his size._

"Aye, you're a pretty one," the King acknowledged, and Sansa preened like a rose under his gaze. Turning, he gave a nod to Arya, "And your name is?"

"Arya."

Then he turned to her place in the line, taking in her fiery hair and the little boy in her arms.

Grey eyes bore into rounded cheeks flushed equally by the cold and a lot of alcohol, if what she was smelling was anything to go off of. His belly heaved with his steps, but he was surprisingly fluid for a man carrying so much weight, an aftermath of a young man at war she supposed.

"You must be Eledei, then," he said, looking at her. "Who is this?"

Rickon, nothing more than a child, burrowed his face into her midsection shyly.

"My brother, Rickon, your grace," she drawled politely, straightening his hair with a gentle touch.

The King laughed a little, and from behind her cloak Rickon peered curiously at the large man with the warm laugh.

Finally he turned to Bran. "Show us your muscles."

Eagerly, her brother flexed his right arm like the boys did in the fighting yard. He wanted to be a Knight, she knew, but she wondered if it had changed some since witnessing the Kings Justice. Bran had taken death harder than Robb and Jon, she wondered if he realised that it was all a Knight was.

"You'll be a soldier," Robert told him, grinning.

 _Give me a King with humour any day,_ she thought, _fat as he may be, he's no Aerys._

"That's Jamie Lannister," Arya whispered, elbowing Eledei in the process, "the Queen's brother."

Eledei raised an eyebrow at her little sister's enthusiasm and love for all things fighting related, but she didn't bother to comment. She saw the Golden Lion of Lannister look their way as he waved his golden locks from his helmet, and she supposed he was beautiful- but she was much more interested in Rickon who had a fistful of her hair to make her lean down.

"Would you please shut up?" Sansa hissed, "Eledei, tell her!"

Ignoring her sisters completely, she met Rickon's blue eyed gaze. "What is it, little wolf?" She asked, swatting his hands away which he responded to with a rueful grin.

"Shaggydog!" He told her, tugging her skirts when her hair was no longer an option.

Eledei let out a laugh, threading a hand through his hair forcefully and ignoring her Mother's disapproving looks. "Yes, Rickon, you'll see Shaggydog soon."

"Would you please shut it?" Sansa demanded, shoving her sisters arm over the top of Arya's head, to which the younger girl scowled.

Eledei shoved her back, making her stumble forward and out of line, much to Arya's delight.

"Careful, Sansa. You're making a scene."

Sansa's face went as red as her hair, hastening to stand ramrod straight and back into line like the silly girl that she was.

"You ruin everything, you and Arya both!" She whispered furiously, though her fear of being overheard ran deeper than her anger.

Eledei snorted, frowning but not gracing her with a response.

Looking at her, Sansa thought her sister was cold, that she was the walls of Winterfell; impersonable and distant. Sansa would later realise that there was a certain comfort to those walls, a familiarity to the cool touch of grey stone and cement. But then, at thirteen, she thought her sister was foreign and strange, and she resented her for it.

Rickon, however, scowled fiercely at Sansa, fisting his sisters skirts and peeking from her stomach. "Eledei doesn't ruin anything!"

She scooped her little brother up in her arms, giving him a half smile. "It's alright, Rickon, not everyone knows how to have a bit of fun."

What a fierce boy he was, with his curls and his storm brewed eyes.

"Take me to your crypts, I want to pay my respect," King Robert said suddenly.

Stiffening, Eledei felt the hotness of anger fill her stomach and coil violently. She hardly heard the Queen's cool tone and objection, half deaf with fury and the noise of blood pumping through her forcefully. He had no right to those Crypts, her Father knew it as well as she did- but he wouldn't deny his King anything, she knew that too.

"Shaggydog!"

Quite suddenly, a violent squawk sounded as a flock of birds tore apart in a frenzy of fluttering wings and the sound of flapping feathers, followed by a dangerous sounding bark as a reddish coated pup came bounding forward. It darted between a startled guards open legs, skidding around a sharp corner before gaining footing fast, somehow picking up more momentum as the birds tried to fritter away clumsily in their panic.

Growling and snapping it's teeth noisily, she caught sight of a missing tooth.

As horrified gasps parted from Southern lips, the wolf dove through the air, clamping it's teeth around a juicy looking bird and landing under some sturdy looking horse's legs. Savaging its prey, it threw its head back and forth in an effort to make its kill, fur shaking snow and leaves around the same way a wet dog did water.

"Blast it all!" The Stark girl swore, giving a sharp whistle that made her little pet stop in its tracks. "C'mere, you lunatic!"

Rickon, who couldn't tell anyone else's wolf from his own, looked delighted. "Shaggy!"

Clever yellow eyes glinted, it's neck wretching to the side at the sound of her voice, looking like an excited pup in lew of its violent nature. Finding her own grey eyes abruptly, the wolf lurched from beneath the horses legs, unsettling the more skittish of the lot, running past frightened people and animals gracefully, and running to its owner.

Flying under Jaime Lannister's mount, the Kingsguard member watched it go without so much as blinking, holding his horse steady.

It deposited the bird at her feet, it's body twisted unnaturally and the snow flushed red with blood. Something came over her then, the sight of birds flying and taking men with it and the feather in the snow. Bent forward, Rickon practically crawling up her back, she watched the tiny creatures eyes dart about- It wasn't dead. Not yet.

Letting out a strangled wail, an oddly pretty and human like sound, it tried to move it's skeletal like feathers uselessly. It twitched violently, seizing up and stiffening all at once, and she saw the fear take hole in those beady eyes like apple seeds.

It let out a horrible noise before dying.

Looking up, Eledei was met with her Mother's stern face.

* * *

 **(AN: Rickon is a severely underrated character, I don't want him to die. Also, Eledei calling her wolf a 'lunatic' is actually just something I threw in as an ode to my cat, Luna. He's a boy, but we called him Luna anyway, short for Looney Tunes or Lunatic, take your pick.)**


	3. WHEN STRANGERS MEET

**WHEN STRANGERS MEET**

"When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring." Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

They were in her chambers, as per her Mother's request, him taking up the doorway and herself idling. She couldn't tell if they were ignoring one another, if it was one of those games they might have played as children, but she had the feeling that Robb always lost, if anyone won in the first place.

Mindlessly, she slipped her hands across the cracked spines of the books she had lining the stone ledge of her window, nimble fingers pirouetting across the covers in an elegant fashion, coming to an abrupt stop as they ghosted along a chipped wooden figure of some long forgotten carving. It was wedged between two worse for wear tomes, she took great care in unslotting it for some reason. She held the crudely cut shape of a girl in one hand, and although it fit easily in her closed palm it seemed heavier than it really was- a gift from Ser Rodrik Cassel, a rare afterthought she had held on to from childhood. Robb owned the counterpart of a little wooden boy, it might have been for their name day, she forgot they shared one.

"I've still got mine, somewhere," Robb said.

Eledei frowned, those funny colourless eyes peering at him from over her shoulder, the figure held tight in her fist. She could feel each groove, each dip of the wood that Ser Rodrik had smoothed with his knife, whittling away for hours while she had watched with keen eyes.

At the doorway, he seemed occupied with what she had in her hands. His fascination with some long forgotten toy made him seem a lot younger, it preserved some childish quality to his cleanly shaved face. Maybe she ought to tell him it was just a toy, that it didn't mean anything, but she knew then that it meant plenty to him. It was, strangely enough, one of the only things they had shared. The counterpart of some wooden figures was a bond they could look back on, it was some jaded assurance to him that they were, in fact, two halves of a whole.

Her hair was redder than his, he had Tully blue eyes and hers were undeniably Stark if not her own, and other than sharing a womb she couldn't quite muster up any other similarities. It had always been their differences that defined them, shaped their relationship until it was some horribly warped thing, a silence gone stale and the uncomfortable dampness of inferiority creeping up on them as the years went by. She forgot they were the same age, sometimes, and she wondered how she must look to him. In her eyes Robb still had some quality she'd long ago lost, perhaps she'd left it in the woods or the crypts or some whorehouse where she'd knock back flagons of mead. He didn't look so old, in her eyes, and she couldn't wrap her mind around only being six and ten, she felt so much older somehow.

He reddened under her scrutiny, glancing down almost shyly. "I can't remember where I put it, but I know I still have it…"

She wasn't sure when they had drifted so far apart that he felt so uncomfortable in her presence, whether it was anymore warranted than her own oddities. Strangers often couldn't look her in the eye, even when she was a child there had been something dark clouding her face, making people look away. She wondered, briefly, if that made her and Robb strangers, too. It certainly felt like it, sometimes.

Carefully, she placed the figure back in its place on the ledge of the window, a wooden girl forever stuck at an age she could hardly understand, sitting there to be forgotten again.

"You can sit down, you know," she shrugged one shoulder, not even looking at him. Some part of her felt she couldn't, she couldn't stand making her own family squirm under her gaze, it maddened her to no end.

She watched his reflection in the iced glass of her window. He cleared his throat, his transparent being nodding. For a minute he just stood there, then he hastened and crossed the room in no more than three strides, sitting gingerly atop the furs in the furthest corner. The glass was never as vibrant, her view obstructed with it's warped influence that made everything appear darker, more cold- as if it sucked the warmth out of everything it touched and left a much less saturated world behind.

"Mother's furious, Eddie. She's escorting the Queen to her chambers, but she'll want to speak to you before the feast," Robb muttered, he didn't have his curls to hide behind anymore. The colour wasn't quite auburn in the glass, it was some hue of brown, as if all the red had been drained, and his skin was as white as snow.

With each exhale the window fogged, clouds of condensation blooming like billowing smoke from the chimneys at wintertown.

Neither of them spoke, instead he'd taken to looking into the fireplace as if there were some hidden secrets scattered in the ashes from this morning. She wouldn't start a conversation, and even if she wanted to she thought her Mother would be awfully put out if Robb died of shock. He was more favorable than she ever could be, besides.

"Eledei?" He called sadly into the empty chambers and their hollow walls.

She turned to see him with his head in his hands, looking hard into a fireplace with no fire.

"Do you think things could have been different, that you and I could have been closer?"

She stared at him, something unpleasant unravelling in her stomach. "Don't ask me cruel questions, Robb."

"Then I shan't- you'll only bloody run like you always do," he swore vehemently, jaw clenched in anger.

She watched him stand up, sweeping away from the room in a huff.

Eledei might have smiled then, because he was the one that ran away this time.

"He's hurt, you know," Jon called.

She turned, and there he was at the doorway, solemn faced. The bastard brother had inherited the Stark's look better than most, other than Arya that is. It must plague her Mother something awful, she knew it did, to look at a son that wasn't hers and see her Husband's face peering back at her.

"I didn't ask him to come," she snorted. It had been her that was ordered to her chambers, not Robb. Never Robb.

Jon gave her the look, one he reserved especially for her and the Greyjoy ward. He never did appreciate the finer aspects of their antics, whoring and running took a lot more than the eye first caught on to.

Unlike her twin, however, he knew not to prod too much. He'd always known his sister to have a particularly sharp bite, she liked to lash out when people got too close for her liking. That was the only reason she hadn't drove him away immediately, because despite her distaste for small talk or any talk whatsoever she did possess some quality of fairness.

"Out with it, then," she demanded, "or do you mean to ornate the doorway?"

"Eddie, what do you think of the Night's Watch?"

"It's a fools bargain, why?" She said, bored.

When she took a moment to look at him properly she gave a sharp grin. Looking her in the eyes was something akin to a mirror, he saw his own boyish face staring back at him.

With that same grin, she ventured; "Ah, so I'm not the only one hiding, am I?"

He looked away.

"You should go, Jon. My Lady Mother will be here soon."

She didn't look to see if he took her advice, she didn't much care. Whether he was there or not, she was sure an argument would follow.

Still, some part of her sought out the wooden figure piece, considering it for a moment more. Perhaps it deserved such momentum in her mind, it was one of the few possessions she had held on to since girlhood, one of the few possessions she would take with her when it came time to leave. It appeared that such a time was fast approaching, she supposed her engagement would be announced soon enough.

It was while she considered the carving, a sparse fondness for Ser Rodrik Cassel filling her memory, that her Mother entered the room. She was looking harrowed, the stress of a Royal party visit eating away at her, and under Eledei's keen eye she observed that her Mother had lost a little weight since such visit had been announced. Part of it might have been because of her, too, and she decided she didn't like that thought as soon as it occured.

"You were instructed to tie your wolf to it's post," she said.

"Good evening to you too, Mother."

"Honestly, Eledei, you should know better. You should be setting an example for the others-"

"I don't mean to upset you, you know," she interrupted cooly, looking away from her Mother's stern gaze. "Ser Cayn had taken my wolf to leash her, I didn't set her free or anything of the sort. It was an honest mistake. The way you go on it's like I purposefully go out of my way to be a constant disappointment."

The pair of them let the silence fill the room, her rested against her bed furs and her Mother standing by the window. Is this what Robb must have felt like in her presence? It was cruel, if such were the case. She felt small and tired and angry, like a child, but she tried her utmost not to let her temper get the best of her. Like she said, she wasn't trying to upset anyone.

Sometimes she dreamed of leaving and never coming back. Each step she took outside the grounds only furthered her resolve.

"In some months time you will be married," her Mother said eventually. She was watching out the window, reminiscing of her own time at such an age and the impending engagement that had fallen to her. "You'll be a capable wife, you've always done well in your lessons. But I worry… I've always thought that my children would find love in the matches your Father and I made. That each of you would find love the same way we did…"

Strangely, she wished her Mother would scream and shout at her, at least then she could understand. If only her Mother would express her anger and disappointment, she'd have something tangible to chew over, but all that came to her was a terribly empty feeling.

"Lord Ryswell has expressed his consent towards the engagement, but your Father and myself still hold some doubts towards the match," Catelyn admitted.

Turning, she looked at her eldest properly. She hadn't outwardly expressed anything pertaining her theoretical betrothal, in fact trying to ply a word from her about the matter was like pulling teeth. Looking at her, she surmised that she was much like her Uncle Brandon, hot-blooded and young- Brandon had never had the chance to grow old. A gallant fool, her Father had said, she remembered it clearly now, she always did when she looked at her daughter. It often felt like she was betraying Ned when such thoughts arose, and perhaps some part of her resented Eledei for it.

She had been named for her Father, but the gods had deemed it to liken her to her Uncle.

"Eledei, you've always been difficult. Even as a babe, you'd fuss in my arms, and when you learnt to walk nobody could keep up. But now I need your compliance, I need you to set an example for your sisters and go beyond your own selfish whims."

Her mouth felt dry, with each word that passed her Mother's lips it was like a noose getting tighter and tighter until she struggled with each shallow breath. Difficult… Yes, she was rather difficult, wasn't she? Difficult, unruly, selfish. She'd wanted her Mother to lecture her, to say something she could fathom rather than fanciful notions of love that she had never quite grasped, and yet now those thoughts had burnt up and left the taste of ash in her mouth.

"I need you to demonstrate your loyalty to your house, and serve under our banners like a Lady should."

Eledei wanted a drink. Wine, and plenty of it.

"Can you do that for me?"

Her Mother was regarding her with a kindly face, Tully features open with earnest and a small dose of pleading.

Why did she share her wineskin with Theon? It's emptiness was glaring, she thought her bodice too tight to breathe, like her ribs were concaving in on itself.

"Yes," she said, mindlessly.

Catelyn smiled. She didn't notice the desperation clawing at her daughter's eyes, or the wineskin she clutched in the fold of her skirts.

* * *

The wolf trotted sullenly in the pathway, stopping so that Eledei had no choice but to match her movements or take a hard fall against the cobblestone. The lunatic of a direwolf pup might have gone to make some sort of noise, but thinking better of it she borrowed her wet snout into the awaiting palm her owner offered readily.

She could sense her owners misery, perhaps.

"Hush, now." Eledei preemptively ordered, eerily attuned with her beastly companion and it's childish whims. "You're the one that got me into trouble in the first place, and isn't that the truth?"

Naught but a puppy, albeit a particularly loveable one with a coat the colour of blood, she found haven in the depths of the Stark girls skirts. Fur tangled and winded against fabric and the bare skin of the Lady's legs, a playful nipping of her ankles through tough leather boots and baby teeth.

"Toothless, _sure,_ " she snorted.

Knowing full well she was being manipulated, she found herself resting against the hard stone that dug into her back. It seemed as if she was at an impasse at the archway entrance of some whorehouse she liked to frequent. The promise of wine did wonders to improve her darkened mood, washing away her Mother's words with the intent of dulling her too sharp mind.

The day had started awful enough, surely. She took this time to reflect, like she so often did after a strenuous bout of human interaction, fingers threading through fur. With Sansa almost in tears over the ever expansive connotations of one's braid and how very well to do the Southern styles were. The Mill and the wine had been somewhat of a gentle reprieve, only dampened by Theon's duties and punctuality, for the one time she sought out company he was busy. Wine, Eledei thought, might just have been the only grace in her life.

She had left the confinements of Winterfell's walls in want of naught but a drink. Looking at her Mother's face sometimes had such an effect, she felt the uncomfortable dryness of her throat and wineskin alike become apparent as Catelyn's face took shape tiresomely.

It was days like this that could shape themselves up into a series of misfortune or something dreadfully dull, she knew. The later in the day it was the sterner the face and the longer the shadow's loomed. Thus, Eledei did what she did best. She disappeared. Now, looking into the face of some golden man from many a story, she leant herself the benefit of the doubt.

She had been standing in the gaping mouth of a stonewell archway in the depths of Wintertown, it's aching cavity casting a jagged light that warmed the evening air, like it had swallowed her campfires and lit the night with spiced wine. The door opened quite suddenly, and she was met with the blinding white of the Kingsguard armour, uniform in it's finery, and a man that looked much more like what a King should be if the stories were to be believed. She was standing in the entrance of a whorehouse, with the golden lion of Lannister, because of course she was. There had never been a time when Eledei Stark had not been in a place she shouldn't have been.

She had only sought out the brothel for naught but a drink. This flurry of light in the darkened skies of the North was attractive and warm to the skin, like what the sun might have felt like in the South perhaps.

He was handsome, undeniably so. She thought the gold of his hair might just be the colour the sun would give off if one dared to look up close, and just like the sun he _burned_. Viciously, tempered and beautiful. Turning men a reddy colour, be it heatstroke or broken skin, and young maidens blushed when they looked upon him the same way their cheeks freckled in the long summertime.

Of course he had to be the one to open the door, to let the light leak into the cold and thaw out the ice of the archway stone. It was an orange flame that licked at his features and her red hair.

Ser Jaime Lannister paused, eyes trailing over herself and the wolf half hidden in her skirts lazily.

She thought time had its own funny ways of manifesting itself. It felt like a long time since she'd woken up, longer still since she'd slept, but the day wavered onwards with incessant persistence. Time filled up steadily and went off-kilter to the song of fat Kings and squabbling siblings, the disappointment of her Lord and Lady parents and stray direwolves. Eledei was used to feeling tired, but it felt better somehow without people around to make up all the noise; just the trees and the whispering of the woods that almost seemed to know she was there.

Unknowingly, he had broken the peace of solitude she had sought out endlessly, and she might have hated him for it.

Two people meeting in the most unexpected of places wasn't so unexpected, perhaps. It was the perfect kind of day for it, though Eledei begrudged acknowledging the simple truth of it all. And when his green eyes lit up with _something_ , be it recognition or amusement, she blamed her Mother wholeheartedly.

Her Mother's words had sent her into one of her moods. It was a mood meant for one cure and one cure only; drink. And here she was, at a place for whore's and lustfull creatures, and she wondered which category he fell into, the former or the latter.

"You're the Stark girl," he drawled, tall frame fitted to the door and leaving sparse gaps but nowhere to go.

She looked bored, even in the face of the Kingslayer and at the opening of a whorehouse.

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"You suppose or you are?"

"It's funny how those two coincide more oft than not," she remarked, and he saw the impatience and sheer annoyance that flashed through her face quick as a lash. There was no recognition, the dawning of realisation when people saw him, it was almost as if she had no idea who he was. "I am a Stark girl, one of three. If you don't mind?"

She motioned to the door, and graciously he moved sideways so as to accommodate her.

* * *

 _ **(AN: I've been slow at updating all my fics. Apologies.)**_


End file.
